http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION has ensnared the United States in
the irrelevant turmoil of the Balkans. After NATO's nearly yearlong
occupation of Kosovo, the General Accounting Office warns that "many
difficult political, social and other issues remain unresolved" in the
"volatile" territory. Yet, the Republican Congress does nothing.

A year ago, the United States and its NATO allies fomented war over Kosovo
by attempting to impose the unrealistic Rambouillet diktat. Shameless NATO
propaganda stirred up war fever. The Clinton administration then attacked
Yugoslavia without the sanction of either Congress or the United Nations.

After 78 days of bombing, the attackers won - though NATO's claims of
military success turned out be grossly inflated. The political situation has
turned ugly.

Former Kosovo Liberation Army thugs rule the streets, kill with impunity,
and fight for control of lucrative criminal markets. Weapons remain hidden;
paramilitaries continue to operate. Most ethnic Serbs - an estimated 250,000
to 260,000 - have fled. Ethnic Albanians have kicked out most everyone else,
including Gypsies, Jews and even non-Albanian Muslims.

The antagonistic communities battle openly where they continue to coexist,
such as the city of Mitrovica. The GAO warns that "ethnically related violent
incidents occur regularly and have recently increased." Attacks on Western
troops will increase.

Occupation (KFOR) Cmdr. Gen. Klaus Reinhardt observed earlier this year:
"When NATO came into Kosovo we were only supposed to fight the Yugoslav army
if they came back uninvited. Now we're finding we have to fight the
Albanians."

Jiri Dienstbier, former foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, told the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights that additional troops are needed to combat
Albanian separatists determined to create an independent, Serb-free Kosovo.

Unfortunately, observes the GAO, in both Kosovo and Bosnia, which NATO has
occupied for more than four years, "the former warring parties largely retain
their wartime goals." Kosovar Albanians want independence, Serbs believe
Kosovo should remain part of Serbia, Bosnian Croats and Serbs support
separate states and Bosnian Muslims desire a unitary government under their
control.

Into this mess, the Clinton administration has thrust 12,400 U.S.
soldiers. Strategically, the Balkans is not important to Europe, let alone to
America. An assassination in Sarajevo (Bosnia's capital) in 1914 lit the fuse
to World War I. But that conflict exploded only because the major powers were
ready to fight for other reasons.

In contrast, when Yugoslavia dissolved in 1991, outside states stayed out.
The bitter civil war in Kosovo was even less relevant. It was like any number
of nasty guerrilla struggles around the globe - by the Kurds in Turkey and
the Tamils in Sri Lanka, for instance. What distinguished it were the deaths
of white Europeans and the presence of CNN cameras. Which was enough to get
the Clinton administration involved.

Unfortunately, ethnic hatreds, territorial disputes, economic chaos and
social disorder continue to dominate the Balkans. No wonder, then, that Brig.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commands U.S. forces in Kosovo, says the West's
occupation will last "for at least a generation."

If Europe wants to permanently patrol the Balkans, let it. Kosovo is
closer to Berlin, Paris and London than to Washington. The Europeans
collectively have a larger economy and population than America. They should
use their abundant resources to defend their own interests.

With the administration frivolously deploying U.S. forces in irrelevant
conflicts, Congress must act. Alas, expecting decisive action from Republican
legislators is even more naive than expecting principled action from Clinton
officials. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, raise
armies, and fund the military, but legislators supinely permit the president
to bomb and occupy other nations.

The House, led by Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, recently
voted no more. If the president did not certify by next April that the
Europeans were meeting their commitments in Kosovo - unlikely, since they
never keep their NATO promises - he was to develop a withdrawal plan.

But the Senate, despite approval of the full Appropriations Committee and
co-sponsorship of former Majority Leader Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., narrowly
rejected a similar amendment, requiring congressional approval to keep U.S.
forces on station after July 2001.

Kosovo is a disaster that will only worsen. Warns Jane's, a British
intelligence firm: "It is virtually inevitable that there will be further
casualties among KFOR troops - a prospect which raises the specter of a
Somalia-style fiasco in which the peacekeepers become themselves the targets."

Yet the Clinton administration continues to push the United States ever
deeper into the Balkans' quagmire. And Congress continues to abdicate its
responsibility to pull the United States
out.

JWR contributor Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
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05/25/00: The silence of the international community05/18/00: Protecting the next generation